The Musica per Roma Foundation was created on 19 July 2004 out of what was originally a joint-stock company at its founding in 1999. From a legal standpoint, this was the first significant transformation of a joint-stock company into a foundation to be allowed under the reform of the new corporate law.

The founding members are the City of Rome, which has granted the gratuitous loan of the Auditorium facility to the Foundation for 99 years; the Chamber of Commerce, the Province of Rome and the Lazio Region.

Ever since it was inaugurated on 21 December 2002, the Auditorium Parco della Musica has become a consolidated reality on the cultural scene of both the city of Rome and the entire country, a resounding success in terms of the quality of its programmes and the consistently high audience turnout.

Every year over one million people, including audience and participants in the various events, have visited the complex run by the Musica per Roma Foundation. The Foundation is able to finance itself for over 65% of its overall budget. In this regard it should be observed that the Auditorium is more and more a multi-functional arts complex, and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia has finally made the Auditorium its “home.”

The facility’s concerts of symphonic and chamber music are intertwined with the most varied and versatile of concert programming, from jazz to pop, to rock, world music and beyond; as well as film premieres, stage plays, art exhibits and literary performances. The festivals and other events have fast become ‘musts’ on the cultural calendar, while our halls host more and more fashion shows, conferences, conventions and meetings at an institutional level.

These activities to promote culture at large make the Auditorium Parco della Musica an engine of growth of limitless power in the great design of relaunching and requalifying the city, a policy that does not involve urban planning, roads, transport and local social services alone, but also – and of greater concern to our organization – cultural initiatives and cultural facilities, an area in which Rome has made enormous progress, taking its place alongside the other leading European capitals.

Renzo Piano’s definition of the Auditorium as a “cultural factory” is becoming ever more apt as time goes by.